You remember: eighth-grade physical science, right? The "supersaturated solution"? Sure ya do: Take a beaker of water and stir some salt into it. Keep adding salt until the solution is so saline that it just can't absorb any more salt; it won't dissolve. Then, take the beaker of now-salty water and heat it up over a Bunsen burner. Voila! Whaddaya know - now the solution will absorb still more salt - far more salt than it could under normal circumstances.
Keep adding salt until the water just can’t absorb any more. The solution you have created is now "supersaturated": it contains far more salt than any normal solution could possibly contain, because you have altered the condition under which the solution was created. Now, let the supersaturated solution cool, and then, once it's cooled, as soon as some external event occurs to the solution - you jar the beaker, say, or you add one more itty bitty crystal of salt –
Everything changes with breathtaking speed. The addition of one more salt crystal to the supersaturated solution is, literally -
A crystallizing event.
Here's the scientific explanation (with some emphasis added):
A solvent can only hold so much of a given solute in solution. When that level is reached, the solution is said to be "saturated" . . . More solute can be forced into solution by heating the mixture. As the mixture is heated, its capacity to dissolve the solute increases. The solution remains close to the saturation point as it is heated, and more of the solute is dissolved.
If the solution cools past its saturation point, but no solute precipitates out, the solution is said to be "supersaturated." It contains more solute than it ought to be able to at a given temperature. The reason that a solution becomes supersaturated is complicated, but in general terms, there has been no opportunity for the solute to begin to crystallize.
You can imagine the solution just bursting with energy, with the solute molecules desperate to line themselves up so that they can crystallize out of solution. They just need a little bit of energy, a little extra "umph" to do so.
"A little extra 'umph.' "
I think we're there, in this country.
I think we’ve reached the point of supersaturation by this filthy, corrupt reign of the group of regressive criminals calling themselves the Bush administration. I think the spurning of congressional subpoenas by the White House will be the crystallizing event – the seed crystal, if you will – that will trigger impeachment hearings.
See, for the past six years, the Republican stranglehold on all three branches of government in the United States has supersaturated this country with a mixture of corruption, greed, dishonesty, malfeasance, mendacity, lawlessness and hubris to a degree not seen in at least a century, if not longer. Under most circumstances, such a mind-boggling concentration of wrongdoing -
- corruption in the billions of dollars,
- overturning of a millennium-old legal doctrine,
- war on false pretenses,
- federal sanctioning of torture,
- regression of hard-won civil rights,
- an unrelenting assault on the environment,
- systematic politicization of virtually every once-respected federal agency,
- monstrous harm to the international standing of the United States and to the effectiveness of its armed services,
- an unprecedented increase in the national debt financed by all but the richest 1% of the nation's citizens,
- wanton violation of long-established law by the executive branch,
- a shattering of the wall of separation between church and state -
- would be thoroughly reported on and decried by a free, unfettered press which took seriously its responsibility as a watchdog serving in the public's interest.
But a compliant - even often complicit - press has instead chosen to ignore such travesties to the point where the very environment around Washington, D.C. has become superaturated with corruption, criminality, thievery, and lawlessness. Scandals that in a previous administration would have triggered multi-year, multi-million-dollar investigations nowadays warrant barely a mention in today's news. The once-shocking has become commonplace. Mendaciousness and malfeasance are acceptable, even expected.
The arrest and subsequent conviction of top Republic White House aides, the arrest and conviction of the top Republic lobbyist or the indictment of the former Republic majority leader of the House of Representatives, the revelation that the Department of Justice made a mockery of its name and instead became a political arm of the Republic Party, the revelation that the White House knew its rationale for invading a sovereign nation was utterly without merit - all of these breathtaking travesties draw barely a second thought from most Americans.
This has not been an accident. The Republic representatives who controlled all three branches of government for the six years from 2001 until 2007 added malfeasance upon maladministration upon corruption to an American society that seemingly could absorb no more, and then they heated the mixture through an utter lack of oversight, passage of laws enabling such activity, and persecution and prosecution of those who would oppose it.
All the while, the mixture grew more and more saturated. And then, in spite of everything, the American electorate threw cold water on the solution. A bare Democratic majority took control of Congress in January of this year.
The fire under the witches' brew of scandal that the Republics had concocted was suddenly turned off. Investigations began, and the mixture cooled dramatically. Subpoenas were issued, and the atmosphere of criminality in Washington grew positively chilly.
The solution of corruption and malfeasance that Republics had carefully cooked for the previous six years, hidden from all prying eyes, was supersaturated. It had absorbed more vile, unspeakable disgrace than American politics and culture could otherwise have absorbed under normal circumstances. Now, having been cooled by the chilling presence of Democratic accountability in Congress, the mixture was highly unstable. All that was needed was one more external event , a crystallizing event, to bring about a change with breathtaking speed.
We're at the point in this Grand Experiment called "American democracy" where we knew all it would take would be a seed crystal, one thing to tip the balance off of the artificial equilibrium created by six years of heating up the criminal stew.
December 28, 2006
But come, let us reason together. Let's look at a realistic scenario. I have no doubt - especially given Bush's surge of insanity in the past couple of weeks or so - that the standard tools of governmental oversight - congressional subpoenas - will be ignored by the BushCheney cabal. It may well be that BushCo's political calculus is very limited. Once the investigations start, the choices probably will narrow to two: (1) Do they fight the congressional subpoenas (a la Nixon), and in so doing risk bringing down the wrath of Congress (a la Nixon), and be charged with obstruction of justice and contempt of congress (a la Nixon)?; or (2) Do they go ahead and turn over evidence, and risk opening up the full catalog of unspeakable transgressions, the almost incomprehensible, breathtakingly arrogant perversions of government perpetrated by this gang of criminals over the past six years, and hope that the public will stand by them as they try to use the "unitary executive" chimera to defend their otherwise indefensible actions?
I'm guessing this group of arrogant pricks goes with Door No. 1. At which time, Congress's choice of weapons will be narrowed to one.
We've had our crystallizing event. Now it's up to Congress to take the next step in this Grand Experiment.
(Also available at My Left Wing)